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Vertical scrolling on homescreens?

I was playing around with the HTC bookmark widget earlier, and noticed widgets can be dragged up and down. Are there any widgets available that act as a blank overlay for the homescreen, which can also scroll vertically to view more widgets and shortcuts? This can be helpful to access more on each homescreen and provided no one else knows about the vertical scroll, hiding a few "work documents" .

sanamkan said:
I was playing around with the HTC bookmark widget earlier, and noticed widgets can be dragged up and down. Are there any widgets available that act as a blank overlay for the homescreen, which can also scroll vertically to view more widgets and shortcuts? This can be helpful to access more on each homescreen and provided no one else knows about the vertical scroll, hiding a few "work documents" .
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how long have you had your phone again?
just about everyone knows about scrollable widgets.
and no you cant make a homescreen vertically scrollable.

1. You are being a ****.
2. He didn't ask about scrollable widgets.
3. Yes its possible it would just require some heavy knowledge and coding.

I wasn't announcing that widgets could scroll, I was providing an example. Nor did I ask if it was possible to make the homescreen scroll. What I'm asking IS possible. I was only asking if it already exists.

sanamkan said:
I wasn't announcing that widgets could scroll, I was providing an example. Nor did I ask if it was possible to make the homescreen scroll. What I'm asking IS possible. I was only asking if it already exists.
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I haven't seen anything like that and I understand what you are asking. You would need to go to the android app dev section to see if someone will take A TON of time to make a full screen vertical scrolling widget that you can place other widgets in.

Would it be impossible to look at bookmark widget's code as a basis? As for integrating shortcuts into a widget, I could probably try and contact the dev of Multi icon. That should take care of the major concerns, right?

I dont know if you could make a widget that lets you host other widgets or shortcuts. but there are 2 options that may work for you
one is the folder system, you can make folders to keep your app shortcuts in, but they will not allow you to nest widgets inside of them.
another option is to use a secondary launcher like launcher pro or ADW launcher, and when you want to access the shortcuts or widgets that are in that launcher you can open it up. then you can set one of the launchers to be the default when you hit the home button, or have it ask you each time you hit it.
just my 2 cents, but don't give up on the widget inside a widget idea, im sure a bunch of people would like to have that ability

Teksu said:
I dont know if you could make a widget that lets you host other widgets or shortcuts. but there are 2 options that may work for you
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The program/shortcut integrated in a widget is performed perfectly on the Multi icon widget. Pre-existing widgets in the widget haven't been included, but the dev has begun creating specialty widgets. I do recommend checking it out.
Teksu said:
another option is to use a secondary launcher like launcher pro or ADW launcher, and when you want to access the shortcuts or widgets that are in that launcher you can open it up. then you can set one of the launchers to be the default when you hit the home button, or have it ask you each time you hit it.
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I've tried QuickDesk, which keeps your current launcher, but enables a popup homescreen when you double tap the home button. It's not the smoothest process by any means, and somehow makes HTC Sense pop up in your home button long press. If you know of any better attempts at this, I'd like to see how those work as opposed to this one. It may be simpler than eventually having to create a new one, right?

Actually, being able to pull up or down on the home screen to activate something like quickdesk would be pretty cool. QD kinda sucks having to double tap on it, and the response is laggy because the button is getting confused as to what it's supposed to do.

as far as I know, the only Launcher that provides vertical scrolling functionality is HTCSense. It also provides the EditText widget as a RemoteView.
**in Android world, a "widget" is any GUI object, really. While the widgets we talk about adding to a Home screen is really called an "AppWidget"**
Its all about how the Launcher handles and behaves with RemoteViews.
For a Launcher to allow one of its AppWidgets to contain and run another AppWidget, that Launcher would have to provide a huge heap of new RemoteViews and surrounding functionality...or, the AppWidget container would have to somehow import the child AppWidget App and run it internally (not possible I think!).
There's a chance that MIUI (a new Chinese Launcher) provides AppWidget-within-Folder functionality. It may then expose custom RemoteViews and API interfaces to allow AppWidgets to be developed to do similar things

Wallpaper Selection is Frustrating!

This is probably a lame thread, but maybe others have similar issues and we can whine about them, because we're lucky and can afford to waste time worrying about our homescreen setup on our smartphones, and not where our next meal is coming from. (wow, where did that come from?)
It's not in any way a development/tech problem, it's just aesthetics: I get so frustrated trying to find a cool wallpaper that still alows me to see the apps/widgets on my homescreens cleanly! I always wind up reverting to a semi-boring wallpaper like a black grid because with busier wallpapers of things I'm actually interested in, they clash so much with my homescreen items that I can't read half my widgets! So just curious as to how you all have your homescreen set up? Do you have a busy wallpaper with minimal apps/widgets? Or do you use a bland "backdrop" wallpaper so that you can see/use the apps/widgets cleanly? This has always been a peeve of mine, because both elements (wp and widgets) seem essential to customizing your phone, and yet it's so hard to get them to play nicely together for a clean, visually pleasing display.

I'm currently using Regina Launcher and have five independent wallpapers.
I just use a "blah" one for busy work spaces and use good one for lesser crowed screens.

That's actually not a bad topic. There are tons of images I'd like to use as a wallpaper but I run into the same problem you do. I always end up settling for something not as bright, so i can see my widgets/apps clearly. Recently though, i just started editing my images to a darker tint so the white lettering stands out. This brings up the concept of integrating text color editing into the existing top launchers.
hmmm...

The one stickied thread in the themes section has a whole host of options with both minimalist and "busy" wallpapers. Some just don't work well, but there are compromises. Its more about finding the right Widgets/launcher to compliment your style.

Yeah, I know, it seems like a silly thing to complain about, you just gotta make it work however fits your tastes/needs. And you're right, the launcher is a big part of it, I've been using stock sense since getting the phone, but finally decided to try a replacement for various reasons, and I'm loving launcher pro plus, it's got many of the sense-type widgets, plus they work better lol, not to mention the dock and other things. Between that and a little finagling, I think I've found something that works.

If you use ADW then you can change the background box to whatever color and transparency you want to. I do this for some of my wallpapers so that the icons stick out.

Thanks for the tip! But honestly, I think I'm sticking with Launcher Pro Plus, I spent the $ already, and it's the only replacement I've tried that can truly top Sense, IMO.

I tend to use brighter more vibrantly colored wallpapers and i run into this issues once in a while. But i usually just place icons and widgets around the spots that make things hard to read or add a shaded box behind the widget.

And considering the amount of time we spend on our phones, it's pretty easy to remember what icon are for what apps. I stopped displaying names a long time ago. Now I even use icon sets not made for android and just use random icons for apps that in some way relate to them.

[Q] Oversized Wallpapers

Hi guys
I'm a total 'droid n00b so please be gentle with me.
I know I have seen Android devices which kinda "spread" an oversized wallpaper across all the home screens so that scrolling through the home screens also scrolls across the wallpaper. I just tried to set an oversized wallpaper and it made me crop it to the screen res
Is this a feature which is only available on some phones, or is there a tweak you have to load first... or am I totally blowing it out of my arse and the whole thing is a figment of my imagination?

stonelaughter said:
Hi guys
I'm a total 'droid n00b so please be gentle with me.
I know I have seen Android devices which kinda "spread" an oversized wallpaper across all the home screens so that scrolling through the home screens also scrolls across the wallpaper. I just tried to set an oversized wallpaper and it made me crop it to the screen res
Is this a feature which is only available on some phones, or is there a tweak you have to load first... or am I totally blowing it out of my arse and the whole thing is a figment of my imagination?
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get rid of Sense by replacing it with ADW Launcher. It will allow you to crop a wallpaper correctly for your home screen and it runs WAY faster with a ton more features. I would also recommend getting the paid version of the app. You can get it from Market.
also.. after you get ADW and are running it... go into Accounts & Sync in your settings and disable all of the Sense stuff.
edit: thought i should also add this recommendation. if you like the sense widgets and hate to part with them. or the weather clock...etc. you can get an app from market called Beautiful Widgets. it runs way faster than sense and does the same stuff... again with more options.

Errr.... that's all very nice but how does it relate to my question?

It is sense that is causing the wallpaper to display as it is, change sense back to the android stock option by removing sense will then enable the wallpaper you wanted.
Sent from my HTC Sensation Z710e using XDA App

In response to your original question, most Android devices and versions do spread the wallpaper across all the home screens, including older versions of Sense. Sense 3.0 however uses vertical wallpapers that do not scroll, it is a new feature in this version. I imagine they did it because of the 3D rotation of the home screens and it would make stretched wallpapers look weird when swiping, but who knows.

It would be pretty complex to have each screen with its own section of the wallpaper seperate, spin, slow and expand, and finally rest at the ending homescreen.
Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using XDA Premium App

Thanks Cyberstorm98 - I shall lobby HTC and see if they'll make it an option when anims are off.

[Q] Display a name for each of the 5 Home Screens

I played with an Acer at a local store and noticed that the various Home Screens have names, like "Entertainment", "Communication" etc (or something like this).
I'm wondering if it's possible to give each of the stock home screens a name so that I can organize apps into different categories. When scrolling from screen to screen the name would be displayed.
Any thoughts?
Thanks,
LongTrail.

the easiest way to do this would be to just use a custom widget maker (available on the market i believe) and just create a widget with the name of the category you want and put it on each homescreen. that would be the fastest way to accomplish this.

That would certainly work, many thanks for the suggestion.

There's an app Called desktop label I use, it might be what you need

i used an apps called Make Your Own Clock HD
it's free, and it got amazing feature to create custom text widget to do what u describe

minimal text
I did this on my Transformer. I used Minimal Text Widget to label each screen and then used multiple live wallpaper to give each screen a different set of wallpapers.
I have a home screen with weather/email info etc. and a link to browser.
A Tech screen with market and system stuff.
A Media screen with video/reading stuff.
and a Games screen with games.
I used desktop visualizer to make the icons on each screen look nice and folder organizer to make groups for games and emulators and such.
I can upload screens later but here is a link to something similar to what I am running except on the nook color.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1039586

Thanks Folks for all the help. I will take a look and see which idea gets me to where I want to be

[Q] widgets and scrolling page to page

II'm not exactly sure what to look for here, I Googled a bunch of things and found nothing. Basically it's like this, I'm running Buzz Launcher, but for the sake of my question I don't think it's really tied into the launcher. I have 6 home screen set up, and I would like for the widgets & icons to fade in & out instead of scrolling as I swipe between screens. Apparently nobody really cares about this as I didn't find any threads when I Googled it. But if it's possible, I'd love to know how to pull it off.